1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

The non-fiction book of the year, potentially decade.

2 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

A non-fiction book of the year but probably not decade.

3 The Ballad of Falling Dragons (Moonfall #2) by Sarah A. Parker (Voyager, $39)

Parker has been touring Aotearoa doing events with adoring fans who buy books – yay, readers!

4 Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan (Simon & Schuster, $43)

Inside the gilt nightmare.

5 Land by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline Press, $38)

An epic about colonisation and rebellion.

6 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38) 

A novel in letters (delightful).

7 Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38) 

“May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Soon a Taiwanese woman is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the ‘something’ is.

Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod Award.”

Also this year’s International Booker Prize winner!

8 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)

That tradwife novel.

9 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Del Rey UK, $28)

Welcome back Rocky!

10 Transcription by Ben Lerner (Granta, $33)

Does tech diminish our relationships actually? Read the novel to find out.

WELLINGTON

1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40) 

2 Land by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline Press, $38)